Around Cairns
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We awoke cool and rested and had a leisurely start. We had a series of errands to run — gas up the van, fill the propane tank, figure out where the reef tour leaves from tomorrow and where we’ll have to park, get my film developed, and of course, find an Internet cafe, check in on the home front, and upload the logs.
It was already pretty warm in the morning but not oppressive. We found our way downtown pretty easily (there really is only one main road), and fumbled around a bit before locating the correct pier. It’s across the street from a very large hotel and casino and we went in to have a look at it. Not very busy for a Saturday, although it was fairly early.
We didn’t have any trouble finding gas, and only a little trouble finding propane. But surprisingly, we couldn’t find a photo development place. This place is one giant tourist attraction and no place to develop film. We finally ended up at the Cairns Center Mall where they not only had a 1 hour place that put the pictures on CD (so you can see some of them today), but the coffee place across the way had WiFi and we were able to upload the log.
(Sorry, this is about as exciting as the day was until later…)
Les wanted to call home so we ended up in town and lo and behold, we found Internet cafe central. So between phone calls and more e-mailing, we burned another couple of hours. I managed to do a little souvenir shopping while Les was on the phone. Talked to the owner of one store where they had a giant fossil in the window, probably 4 ft tall, that it turns out came from the Green River in Utah (where Les and I had spent a little time in the fossil beds on the last sabbatical trip).
I talked to another sales lady for quite some time (the AC was on). She had driven across the Nullarbor 25 years ago when it was all unsealed, with a 6 month old baby. Insanity! She described this device they had on the back of their camper that would wash diapers (nappies) as you drove because of the shaking of the road. She also described the jellyfish (stingers) in the area and made it clear that one was not to swim anywhere where safety netting was not in place. This was good advice since we were headed north a bit to swim. Apparently (we discovered later) the stingers have been especially thick this year. She proceeded to explain to me that it wasn’t the poison in the stingers per se that killed you, the problem is the poison causes such intense pain you have a heart attack and die! Nice.
The other interesting thing she said was she preferred Cairns to the South (where we had all the great swimming) because the sharks they get up here are just little ones. The Great Whites are down south and every year someone gets chomped. Well no one mentioned this to us, thank you very much! Cheated death another time.
Anyway, she suggested we go to Palm Cove since it has a protective net for swimming. Penny, the “tour guide” from the hotel, had also suggested it, so we decided to go up there and check it out. We finally extricated ourselves from telecommunications central and headed out of town around 4pm.
Palm Cove is clearly a tourist spot. There are “villas” and condos and hotels along a nice stretch of beach. And, it turns out, a nice caravan park. And cheap to boot. There is a small enclosure in the water that protects you from the stingers, as well as the salt water crocodiles and the sharks. It’s pretty much instant death out there unless you’re protected and even the netting is no guarantee according to the sign. The sand on the beach was very rough, like the ones we stopped at yesterday. But the water was SO warm. Unbelievable. Nary a twinge as you go in.
We had a short swim then went over to look at some aboriginal art that Les had discovered. An aboriginal woman, Donna, and her hippie English husband were selling rocks she had painted in traditional ways. He told us how they were raising money to help buy back aboriginal lands, how the aboriginals had set up a “tent embassy” in Canberra to express their grievances and that that had worked pretty well, and lots of interesting stuff about aboriginal life and times. He was a character and was putting on quite a sales job but his wife was very sweet and quiet and genuine and we ended up buying a couple of painted rocks from them to support their cause. They were very grateful and shook our hands and wished us well.
We went back in the water for a moonlight swim. There is almost a full moon tonight. The air and water were both very warm. It was quite a bizarre feeling. I’ve never been swimming in the ocean after sunset. At least that I can remember. Didn’t even need a towel when we got out. Just walked back to our campsite.
Should be a warm night tonight. And an early morning tomorrow to head back into town to catch our boat. We somehow gained an hour. It’s an hour earlier here in Cairns than it was in Sydney although they seem like they’d be in the same time zone. But it’s an hour of sleep and we’ll take it.
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